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Gender roles in 20th century literature
Gender roles in 20th century literature
Gender in us literature 20th century
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Blanche Dubois’s obsession with embellishing and hiding the truth in A Streetcar Named Desire reflects the negative effects of society’s oppressive gender norms in the late 1940s. The time period was the pinnacle of gender (George). Patriarchal post-war American society valued women mostly on their youth and beauty and restricted female sexuality. The character of Blanche Dubois demonstrates a woman reduced to youth and beauty. The main reason for Blanche’s concern over her looks is because she is 30 years old. A woman was expected to marry and have children as soon as possible during this time. Blanche is older and does not want Mitch to know her past or her age, because neither will be to her credit. She lies and omits the truth about herself …show more content…
After being honest with Allan and watching him commit suicide, Blanche has decided that a beautiful lie is far better than a harsh truth. Garish light represents to Blanche the truths she has buried within herself. In the light she can be seen as she truly is and not as the illusion she has projected to Mitch. To maintain her facade, she refuses to see him during the day or in a well-lit room. When Mitch points this out and attempts to see Blanche in the light, Blanche cries out, “I don’t want realism, I want magic!” and begs him not to turn the light on (Williams 145). Society has forced Blanche to mold herself into who others (specifically men) want her to be and to turn the light on would break the beautiful illusion Blanche has been brought to …show more content…
Stanley takes an immediate dislike to Blanche and searches for validation of his intuition. Mitch, however, had been quite taken with Blanche before this new information arose. Promiscuity was all but expected of men during the time. The invasion of Normandy during WWII has been referred to as “an erotic adventure” in which men took the spoils of war in the form of women’s bodies (Sweetman). Mitch, who served in the armed forces as an engineer, would likely have been quite familiar with this method of spoil collecting. He may have participated in some spoil collecting himself; therefore, his use of Blanche’s sexual exploits as a disqualifying characteristic is hypocritical, and shows the double standard that women were held to sexually. Having this sexual standard ingrained in her, Blanche attempts to keep her history from Mitch. During Mitch and Blanche’s date, Blanche tells Mitch, “I have--old-fashioned ideals” (Williams 108). She also refuses to do more than kiss Mitch in an attempt to seem pure to him. This is because society already scorned her for her exploits once (when she was kicked out of Laurel). Blanche is seriously interested in marrying Mitch and does not wish for her past to interfere with her chances of becoming Mrs. Harold
However Blanche is unable to get attention or protection throughout the story be cause of all the lies she's told. She also ends up hurting the people who are closest to her when she tries to hide who she really is. For example when she says " I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes magic!
How do Blanche Dubois’s interactions with males in A Streetcar Named Desire lead to her self-destruction?
Blanche’s immoral and illogical decisions all stem from her husband's suicide. When a tragedy happens in someone’s life, it shows the person’s true colors. Blanche’s true self was an alcoholic and sex addict, which is displayed when “She rushes about frantically, hiding the bottle in a closet, crouching at the mirror and dabbing her face with cologne and powder” (Williams 122). Although Blanche is an alcoholic, she tries to hide it from others. She is aware of her true self and tries to hide it within illusions. Blanche pretends to be proper and young with her fancy clothes and makeup but is only masking her true, broken self.
The loss of her beloved husband kept Blanche’s mental state in the past, back when she was 16, when she only cared about her appearance. That is why at the age of 30 she avoids bright lights that reveal her wrinkles. Blanche does not want to remember the troubles of her past and therefore she attempts to remain at a time when life was simpler. This is reinforced by the light metaphor which illustrates how her life has darkened since Allan’s suicide and how the light of love will never shine as brightly for Blanche ever again. Although, throughout the play Blanche sparks an interest in Mitch, a friend of Stanley’s, who reveals in Scene three that he also lost a lover once, although his lover was taken by an illness, not suicide, and therefore he still searches for the possibility of love, when Blanche aims to find stability and security.
“I can 't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.” - Blanche (p. 60). The fear that bright light has the power to reveal the truth is a reoccurring theme throughout the play, embodying the threat that follows Blanche everywhere she goes. In scene nine, Mitch comments on this, saying that he has never seen Blanche in daytime. She makes a series of excuses after which Mitch points a light at her. When this happens, Blanche confesses she only says what ‘ought’ to be true. This doesn’t make Mitch any more sympathetic towards her and she carries on, saying “I don’t want realism, I want magic!” whilst still standing in the light. This makes it clear that it is her own choice to stay in the darkness, and reality would only cause her to suffer. Confirming this, when Mitch turns the light off again, she bursts out crying, as if allowed to pretend again, not being forced by the light to keep on showing her true self, especially her age. She might feel that the light on her face brings out the whole truth, which is too painful for her to bear. The other characters in the play feel it is not correct for her to hide the past and nobody questions whether it is acceptable to live in deceit. “And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that 's stronger than this--kitchen--candle.”-
Blanche could not accept her past and overcome it. She was passionately in love with Alan; but after discovering that he was gay, she could not stomach the news. When she revealed how disgusted she was, it prompted Alan to commit suicide. She could never quite overcome the guilt and put it behind her. Blanche often encountered flashbacks about him. She could hear the gun shot and polka music in her head. After Alan’s death, she was plagued by the deaths of her relatives. Stella moved away and did not have to deal with the agony Blanche faced each day. Blanche was the one who stuck it out with her family at Belle Reve where she had to watch as each of her remaining family members passed away. “I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, Mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths—not always” (Scene 1, page 1546). Blanche lost Belle Reve because of all the funeral expenses. Belle Reve had been in her family for generations, and it slipped through her fingers while she watched helplessly. Blanche’s anguish caused her loneliness. The loneliness fueled her abundance of sexual encounters. Her rendezvous just added to her problems and dirtied her rep...
Blanche also becomes disconnected from reality because of her delusions of music and gunshots from her husband’s death. She seeks relationships with strangers in the hopes of recreating the love she had for her husband. When the relationship fails to satisfy her craving for love, she sinks further into her fantasy. When Mitch rejects her, saying “I don 't think I want to marry you anymore.” (Williams 131) she once again finds comfort in her fantasy. She has sunk so far into her fantasy that she has a response to all of Stanley’s questions. She is no longer up holding the illusion for others. She truly believes her delusions enough to maintain the façade while she is
Blanche’s developmental history or character development points to her diagnosis. Blanche comes to New Orleans to stay with her sister Stella after being fired from her job as a schoolteacher due to having an inappropriate affair with a teenage student. When she arrives to see her sister, she is consumed with insecurities regarding her appearance and is condescending to her sister’s humble lifestyle. Stella’s husband Stanley immediately has distrust and dislike for Blanche and treats her
She looks for empathy in all the wrong places. She looks for it when with strangers, with Stanley, Mitch, and Stella. The tragedy of Alan’s death is a leading cause for Blanche’s desire for attention and empathy. After his death he becomes involved with the hotel “flamingo”. It is here where she mistakenly thinks that sex, is a form of empathy. This empathy causes her character to have a blackened image of how to gain empathy from others. Once she gets run out of the flamingo she attempts to gain attention from Stanley. “It 's mine, too. It 's hard to stay looking fresh. I haven 't washed or even powdered my face and here you are!” Blanche understands that Stanley is a man who can at least support his wife. She flirts with Stanley, in a desperate need to feel, safe and cared for. Stanley understands that Blanche is manipulative, and he does not give empathy towards her. The tragic Irony with Blanche is that she does not recognize true empathy when it is given to her, Mitch has a deep care for Blanche, to the extent that he is willing to marry her. “You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be—you and me, Blanche?” Mitch shows a great amount of compassion towards Blanche, but blanche cannot recognize this empathy and sees it more as an opportunity to manipulate him, which doesn’t turn out well in the end. Stella is the
In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, main character Blanche Dubois to begin with seems to be a nearly perfect model of a classy woman whose social interaction, life and behavior are based upon her sophistication. The play revolves around her, therefore the main theme of drama concerns her directly. In Blanche is seen the misfortune of a person caught between two worlds-the world of the past and the world of the present-unwilling to let go of the past and unable, because of her character, to come to any sort of terms with the present.
Since Blanche’s arrival, Stanley has questioned Blanche’s lifestyle, accused her of theft and engaged in other verbal confrontation. As Mitch’s friend, Stanley deems it necessary to share what he has uncovered about Blanche’s deception and misbehavior with Mitch. After not attending Blanche’s birthday dinner, Mitch visits Blanche late in the evening. In this passage, Mitch reveals to Blanche what he now knows about her and tears off the paper lantern so that he can expose Blanche for who she is. This passage suggests that Mitch embodies the same masculinity already established in Stanley. Utilizing dialogue, characterization, and stage directions, Williams reveals the likeness between the two men.
Firstly, the reader may initially feel Blanche is completely responsible or at least somewhat to blame, for what becomes of her. She is very deceitful and behaves in this way throughout the play, particularly to Mitch, saying, ‘Stella is my precious little sister’ and continuously attempting to deceive Stanley, saying she ‘received a telegram from an old admirer of mine’. These are just two examples of Blanches’ trickery and lying ways. In some ways though, the reader will sense that Blanche rather than knowingly being deceitful, actually begins to believe what she says is true, and that she lives in her own dream reality, telling people ‘what ought to be the truth’ probably due to the unforgiving nature of her true life. This will make the reader begin to pity Blanche and consider whether these lies and deceits are just what she uses to comfort and protect herself. Blanche has many romantic delusions which have been plaguing her mind since the death of her husband. Though his death was not entirely her fault, her flirtatious manner is a major contributor to her downfall. She came to New Orleans as she was fired from...
...es and thinks that her hopes will not be destroyed. Thirdly, Blanche thinks that strangers are the ones who will rescue her; instead they want her for sex. Fourthly, Blanche believes that the ones who love her are trying to imprison her and make her work like a maid imprisoned by them. Fifthly, Blanche’s superiority in social status was an obscure in her way of having a good social life. Last but not least, Blanche symbolizes the road she chose in life- desire and fantasy- which led her to her final downfall.
...itome of southern aristocracy, a world dominated by old-fashioned laws and conservative morals, whilst Stanley embodies the fast-moving, vigorous asperity of the modern world and New Orleans. Blanche, quite literally, summarises her attitude to such cultural differences in the line "maybe he's what we need to mix with our blood now that we've lost Belle Reve and have to go on without Belle Reve to protect us." In this sense, she views the male to be a figure of security and protection, perhaps the only worldly perception that she shares with her opposition whose chauvinism exposes a characteristically defined view of the universal man and his role as predator, protector and guardian. Otherwise, their notions are so diverse that their incompatibility drives the plot along and fuels arguments in every scene.
Blanche is driven by her sexual desire but also wishes for stability and a fresh start instead. Blanche states “It was the other little familiarity that I felt obliged to discourage, I didn’t resent it!.. I was somewhat flattered that you desired me” (Williams 87). For the first time she doesn’t succumb to her body’s physical needs for her wish to be able to settle down with Mitch. If Blanche answered her body’s need for sex she would have killed her act of being a Southern belle looking for a suitor. This again brings out the close line between death and